Because Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations usually last anywhere from 45 to 58 minutes, I wondered if the 72-and-a-half-minute timing for Christina Bjørkøe’s was a misprint. Evidently not. She plays the Vivace slowly, broaching each phrase in a tentative, questioning manner, and softens Var 1’s dynamics and loosens its tenacious slow marching pulse. She swoons all over No 4, handles No 5’s repeated note/chord up beats with kid gloves, and rounds off the ends of No 6’s trilled phrases. A hint of incisiveness seems to peer through No 7, yet the Poco vivace No 8 slows down to a suave crawl. By contrast, No 9’s Allegro pesante e risoluto is too fast and rhythmically slack. No 10’s rapid figurations are steady and controlled, if slower than presto. No 11’s opening phrases disintegrate in slow motion, taking Beethoven’s Allegretto directive with them to the grave. Similarly, No 13’s Vivace becomes an andante, thereby deflating the humour in Beethoven’s silences.

No 14 conveys a sense of a sustained long line, even at its record-breaking eight-minute duration (most pianists require four minutes). In fairness, Nos 16 through 18 come closer to ‘normalcy’ in the tempo department, despite No 17’s poorly articulated octaves. While super slow motion returns for Nos 18 and 21, No 19’s Presto is deftly dispatched. In No 22 (the variation based on Mozart’s ‘Notte e giorno faticar’), Bjørkøe gets the rhythm wrong in bar 4, but No 25 is surprisingly light, supple and centred. Given Bjørkøe’s direct and musicianly Bach and Nielsen recordings, her bizarre Beethoven is hard to fathom, justify or recommend, except for collectors of curiosities.